Almost ten months into the Obama White House, the President has made a commitment to make more use of technology to fundamentally change the way government does business. Two of his top technology officials paused to offer some ideas of how -- and why -- they plan to leverage technology to improve government.

New directive gives departments several requirements over the next 120 days. OMB will track agency progress to meeting the memo's objectives through a dashboard. Experts optimistic about directive's impact, but express concern about resources and oversight.

OMB creates one entity made up of senior leaders to oversee controls and data quality. The second group will focus on transparency and openness around federal spending data. These groups also will help create stretch goals for open government more broadly.

The plethora of new, previously unavailable datasets blossoming on federal agency websites following a deadline last Friday are just the most recent manifestation of the Open Government Initiative. Recently, a panel of experts sat down at the American University's Washington College of Law to explore the OGI as part of the Obama Administration's push for more transparency and openness. They discussed where agencies go from here towards an April deadline set by the White House.